Here is a compilation of recently released reviews for the sci-fi action/adventure flick Avatar.
By THE SNEAK, The Sun
"The last time James Cameron directed a movie he broke all box office records. Now - 12 years after Titanic - he has sunk $300million into Avatar to produce the most dazzling film of the decade. It's a 3D movie people will look back on in years to come to comment on how it transformed cinema. In recent 3D releases such as Beowulf, the effects were impressive but the computer-generated humans looked far from real.
In Avatar, everything feels real - and it's as if you are immersed in the action. And what action. The final battle scene is 20 minutes long and absolutely mind-blowing.
Avatar, out next Thursday, is truly an event movie.
And your critic is sure that, even when he is pushing a Zimmer, he will remember the moment the main spaceship of the baddie corporation goes down in Avatar. It is overwhelming, and that is because you are emotionally tied up in the characters and the story. The plot is set in the next century, with humans trying to take vital resources from a distant planet called Pandora. A paraplegic soldier called Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) gets the chance to walk again when he is transformed into the local species, the Na'vi. This 10ft-tall elegant blue creature is his "avatar".
Jake is supposed to spy on the Na'vi for his company, but his mission gets complicated when he falls for a local girl. The romance between Jake and Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) shows that Cameron has not lost his ability to evoke emotion. It will bring tears to your eyes.
Aussie Sam is totally compelling as Jake. It is easy to see why he is now such an in-demand actor. James Cameron has described his new filming process as "emotion capture". And it's a boast he lives up to. Even when Jake is a strange blue creature, you can tell it is him by his mannerisms. A voiceover from Sam leads the audience through the alien world in a soothing, laid-back way.
One of the most amazing scenes comes when Jake and Neytiri are walking in the dark through a forest on Pandora. Suddenly, she puts out her torch and you see all the vivid, fluorescent plants. Some people - who have only seen the photos and not the film - have commented that it looks a bit cartoonish. It doesn't. Everything feels real. It's as if Cameron has happened upon this alien world and got his camera out. Zoe, who played Uhura in the recent Star Trek remake, also displays star quality. You don't need A-list names to make a great movie but it does help having Sigourney Weaver in the cast. She plays a scientist called Grace, who wants to prevent the plunder of Pandora.
Clearly, there is a message here about mankind's destruction of beautiful places. And Cameron's story is very black and white, an old-fashioned tale of good versus evil. It's unashamedly populist. Just like Titanic. But don't worry. This isn't a preachy story. It's big action. The only reason that Avatar won't top Titanic at the box office is that there are not enough digital screens around the world to show it in all its 3D wonder. But you have to admire the film's backers for being brave enough to take a risk on funding such ground-breaking technology."
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/showbiz/film/2765598/We-get-first-look-at-3D-blockbuster-Avatar.html
By Brendan, Empire Movies
"Avatar is the much-hyped and much-anticipated return of James Cameron as director of a major feature film after an extended hiatus — he has not directed one since 1997’s Titanic. During that time he focused on documentary filmmaking, a couple of television shows and he helped develop the digital 3-D Fusion Camera System, a technology he used to film Avatar.
In the movie, Sam Worthington plays Jake Sully, a U.S. marine who is paralyzed from the waist down. Sully is recruited to travel to a planet called Pandora, a beautiful moon covered with deep forests and magnificent waterfalls and inhabited by a wide array of incredible life forms including the planet’s indigenous population known as the Na’vi. Sully will participate in the Avatar program, whereby he will inhabit the body of a genetically-engineered Na’vi hybrid known as an Avatar.
When Sully transforms to an Avatar, his life changes. He is blue, he is 10-feet tall and he can walk freely around the planet (humans cannot breathe Pandoran air). During his initial rendezvous on the planet, Sully meets a beautiful female Na’vi named Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) and for different reasons, he is accepted into the tribe. The Na’vi are fully aware that Sully is a hybrid so obviously not everyone in the tribe is happy about his presence. But Sully is not there to cause problems. He has simply been asked to observe the Na’vi, to learn about their culture and their habits. It turns out that the main Na’vi camp is situated on top of the largest deposit of a rich mineral that the humans are there to extract. With Sully’s help, the humans are hoping to move the Na’vi off the land peacefully. Unfortunately, this is sacred land for the Na’vi and when they refuse to cooperate with the humans, they do what often happens when it comes to greed, power and money. They decide they are going to forcefully move the Na’vi. This leaves Sully caught in a war between the group of humans who brought him to Pandora to help them out, and Neytiri and the rest of the Na’vi, to whom he has quickly grown very close and attached. An epic battle ensues and the fate of Pandora and the Na’vi rests in the hands of the Americans who have invaded the planet.
I had the opportunity to see Avatar in 3D, a technology of which I have never been a huge fan. I find it sometimes makes the film appear dark and at times, a bit blurry. With Avatar the 3D, for the most part, worked quite well. Where this movie triumphed was in the special effects. The CGI in Avatar has to rank as the best ever in a movie — simply unbelievable. Watching this movie you would never guess it was taking place on an imaginary planet and you actually might believe the Na’vi are a genuine culture. The visual effects in Avatar are outstanding.
As for the acting, well, Sam Worthington is pretty much perfect for the part he plays. He narrates a good part of the movie and has a voice with a bit of an attitude — yet still calming — that was needed to fit the bill. The other actor that stands out is Stephen Lang, who plays the tough-as-nails Colonel Miles Quaritch. If I were to picture in my mind the type of person who should have played Colonel Quaritch, it would be Stephen Lang. I found Giovanni Ribisi to be an odd choice to play the corporate weasel heading up the project. He just seemed a bit young for the part. Zoe Saldana, Sigourney Weaver and Michelle Rodriguez all did a fine job but none of them were called upon to go over and above what you might expect from them. I had totally forgot CCH Pounder was in the cast and when I saw her name in the final credits, I still couldn’t picture her in the movie. I’ll have to look out for that the next time I see it.
The story of Avatar was okay — but probably the weakest part of the whole production. If you step back and look at the basic premise of the movie, it was all pretty simple. The corporate bullies, with the help of the army, step in to take something valuable and they don’t care who they are inconveniencing by doing it. We’ve seen this a million times before on film and probably more times in real life. The only difference with Avatar is that it is happening on an alien planet, with a race of which we have never heard and with some of the best special effects we have ever seen. I was a bit disappointed that I didn’t feel as much emotion as I thought I would feel during the movie. Cameron has done it to me before. I’ll admit I had a tear in my eye when Jack died in Titanic. Hell, I even think I felt a bit sad when the Terminator died in T2. Avatar seemed to be really lacking in that department. Deep down I was cheering for the Na’vi, but I just didn’t feel that raw emotion that you sometimes feel when you are at the movies.
With all that being said, I did immensely enjoy Avatar. It is an outstanding movie to watch and well worth the price of admission. As I just mentioned, the story is decent, but it wasn’t exceptional. The characters are okay but besides Sam Worthington’s Sully, no one was very remarkable. Where this movie is head and shoulders above anything I have ever seen is in the special effects and in the imagination that it took to put it all together. For that, I have to tip my hat to James Cameron and friends. They really did some remarkable work on this film that should impress millions of movie fans around the world. "
8.5 out of 10
http://www.empiremovies.com/2009/12/10/avatar-movie-review/
By Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
"As commander-in-chief of an army of visual-effects technicians, creature designers, motion-capture mavens, stunt performers, dancers, actors and music and sound magicians, he brings science-fiction movies into the 21st century with the jaw-dropping wonder that is "Avatar." And he did it almost from scratch.
There is no underlining novel or myth to generate his story. He certainly draws deeply on Westerns, going back to "The Vanishing American" and, in particular, "Dances With Wolves." And the American tragedy in Vietnam informs much of his story. But then all great stories build on the past ( "Avatar" premiered Thursday in London).
After writing this story many years ago, he discovered that the technology he needed to make it happen did not exist. So, he went out and created it in collaboration with the best effects minds in the business. This is motion capture brought to a new high where every detail of the actors' performances gets preserved in the final CG character as they appear on the screen. Yes, those eyes are no longer dead holes but big and expressive, almost dominating the wide and long alien faces.
The movie is 161 minutes and flies by in a rush. Repeat business? You bet. "Titanic"-level business? That level may never be reached again, but Fox will see more than enough grosses worldwide to cover its bet on Cameron.
But let's cut to the chase: A fully believable, flesh-and-blood (albeit not human flesh and blood) romance is the beating heart of "Avatar." Cameron has never made a movie just to show off visual pyrotechnics: Every bit of technology in "Avatar" serves the greater purpose of a deeply felt love story (watch the trailer here).
The story takes place in 2154, three decades after a multinational corporation has established a mining colony on Pandora, a planet light years from Earth. A toxic environment and hostile natives -- one corporate apparatchik calls the locals "blue monkeys" -- forces the conglom to engage with Pandora by proxy. Humans dwell in oxygen-drenched cocoons but move out into mines or to confront the planet's hostile creatures in hugely fortified armor and robotics or -- as avatars.
The protagonist, Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), is a crippled former Marine who takes his late twin brother's place in the avatar program, a sort of bone thrown to the scientific community by the corporation in hopes that the study of Pandora and its population might create a more peaceful planet.
Without any training, Jake suddenly must learn how to link his consciousness to an avatar, a remotely controlled biological body that mixes human DNA with that of the native population, the Na'vi. Since he is incautious and overly curious, he immediately rushes into the fresh air -- to a native -- to throw open Pandora's many boxes.
What a glory Cameron has created for Jake to romp in, all in a crisp 3D realism. It's every fairy tale about flying dragons, magic plants, weirdly hypnotic creepy-crawlies and feral dogs rolled up into a rain forest with a highly advanced spiritual design. It seems -- although the scientists led by Sigourney Weaver's top doc have barely scratched the surface -- a flow of energy ripples through the roots of trees and the spores of the plants, which the Na'vi know how to tap into.
The center of life is a holy tree where tribal memories and the wisdom of their ancestors is theirs for the asking. This is what the humans want to strip mine.
Jake manages to get taken in by one tribe where a powerful, Amazonian named Neytiri (Zoe Saldana) takes him under her wing to teach him how to live in the forest, speak the language and honor the traditions of nature. Yes, they fall in love but Cameron has never been a sentimentalist: He makes it tough on his love birds.
They must overcome obstacles and learn each other's heart. The Na'vi have a saying, "I see you," which goes beyond the visual. It means I see into you and know your heart.
In his months with the Na'vi, Jake experiences their life as the "true world" and that inside his crippled body locked in a coffin-like transponding device, where he can control his avatar, is as the "dream." The switch to the other side is gradual for his body remains with the human colony while his consciousness is sometimes elsewhere.
He provides solid intelligence about the Na'vi defensive capabilities to Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang), the ramrod head of security for the mining consortium and the movie's villain. But as Jake comes to see things through Neytiri's eyes, he hopes to establish enough trust between the humans and the natives to negotiate a peace. But the corporation wants the land the Na'vi occupy for its valuable raw material so the Colonel sees no purpose in this.
The battle for Pandora occupies much of the final third of the film. The planet's animal life -- the creatures of the ground and air -- give battle along with the Na'vi, but they come up against projectiles, bombs and armor that seemingly will be their ruin.
As with everything in "Avatar," Cameron has coolly thought things through. With every visual tool he can muster, he takes viewers through the battle like a master tactician, demonstrating how every turn in the fight, every valiant death or cowardly act, changes its course. The screen is alive with more action and the soundtrack pops with more robust music than any dozen sci-fi shoot-'em-ups you care to mention.
In years of development and four years of production no detail in the pic is unimportant. Cameron's collaborators excel beginning with the actors. Whether in human shape or as natives, they all bring terrific vitality to their roles.
Mauro Fiore's cinematography is dazzling as it melts all the visual elements into a science-fiction whole. You believe in Pandora. Rick Carter and Robert Stromberg's design brings Cameron's screenplay to life with disarming ease.
James Horner's score never intrudes but subtlety eggs the action on while the editing attributed to Cameron, Stephen Rivkin and John Refoua maintains a breathless pace that exhilarates rather than fatigues. Not a minute is wasted; there is no down time.
The only question is: How will Cameron ever top this?"
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/film-reviews/avatar-film-review-1004052868.story
By Todd McCarthy, Variety
"Cameron reportedly wrote the story, if not the full script, for "Avatar" at least 15 years ago but decided he had to wait until visual effects capabilities advanced sufficiently to credibly render his imagined world and its inhabitants. On this fundamental level, the picture is a triumph; it's all of a piece, in no way looking like a vague mish-mash of live-action, CGI backdrops, animation, performance capture and post-production effects. On top of that, the 3D is agreeably unemphatic, drawing the viewer into the action without calling attention to itself. The third dimension functions as an enhancement, not a raison d'etre, so the film will look perfectly fine without it. (When it opens domestically on Dec. 15, approximately 2100 screens will feature 3D, with another 1200 in 2D.)
Then there's the appearance of the indigenous Na'vi clan. In the wake of the still photographs, trailers and 15-minute appetizer offered up by Fox in recent months, a certain wait-and-see reaction could be felt that raised mild doubts about how physically appealing the protagonists would be. But once they're introduced in the context of the picture, these blue-skinned, yellow-eyed creatures quickly become captivating, even sexy, with their rangy height, slim and elongated bodies and skimpy wardrobe, and the grace and dexterity with which they move.
A few more lines of exposition might have helped explain why, in the year 2154 (according to the press notes), Earthlings, represented exclusively, for some reason, by the United States armed forces, need to travel light years away to Pandora to mine a precious mineral that will help rescue the planet from ecological disaster. (Does the U.S. now rule the world? Or is this nation, exclusively, concerned about the environment? Is it the only country left? Or is it simply the best villain for global consumption?)
After the death of his identical-twin scientist brother, wheelchair-bound former Marine Jake Sully (Sam Worthington) takes his place to become an Avatar, a hybrid being that combines human DNA with that of the Na'vi; achieving the Avatar status occurs under lab conditions, with the subject experiencing his or her alternate state as if in a dream. The official hope is that negotiations can help persuade the natives to move aside and allow further exploitation of their land, although hawkish mission commander Col. Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang) enlists the gung ho Jake's help as his personal military spy.
Early glimpses of the intergalactic spaceship, weightless crew members and Avatars floating in liquid-filled cylinders are mere teasers for the wonders awaiting on Pandora itself. Unlike most sci-fi and action films, which seem compelled by formula to kick off with a slam-bang opening and then punctuate things with more mayhem every 20 minutes or so, "Avatar" more gently escorts the viewer into its new world while utilizing a classical three-act structure.
Unavoidable Vietnam vibes emanate from the scenes of futuristic choppers descending upon the verdant jungles and mountainsides of Pandora, a land filled with exotic insects, giant airborne reptiles and birds, dinosaur-like beasts and fearsome, dog-like attack animals. Separated from his scientific companion and fellow Avatar Grace (Sigourney Weaver) and stranded at night, Jake is rescued from becoming a midnight snack by Na'vi warrior Neytiri (Zoe Saldana), who subsequently shows the interloper around and very gradually warms to him as he demonstrates an aptitude for native ways.
Cameron's extensive experience on deep-water ocean dives, which resulted in a couple of Imax 3D documentaries, no doubt influenced the glowing, luminous nature of some of the plant life and floating seeds that waft through the environment's atmosphere, while the grander landscapes offer staggering vistas of places that are perhaps most reminiscent of South America, just as the Na'vi most strongly call to mind the natives of the Americas in their customs and tribal manners. For their language, which is extensively spoken with subtitled translation, Cameron had a professor, Paul Frommer, invent a tongue of more than 1,000 words from scratch, although Neytiri, among others, has previously learned pretty good English from Grace.
Although the young Na'vi males resent him, Jake learns quickly and earns his stripes by successfully piloting a giant flying banshee. After three months, however, just as the colonel is ready to send his young charge back home, Jake crosses over and, inspired by his intimacy with Neytiri, goes native. It's "A Man Called Horse" all over again, with Jake, believing he can help the clan repel the invaders, taking up the role of a resistance leader against overwhelming odds.
Final stretch is devoted to the ferocious battle between the Earthly maurauders, with their huge airborne battleships and mighty arsenal, and the nearly naked home team, armed mostly with bows and arrows. Despite the latter fighting on friendly terrain, the mismatch is just too great, and the way things pan out strikes the one somewhat discordant dramatic note in the picture, resulting in a bit of final-reel deflation; surely, a more complex but believable climax and aftermath could have been found.
Thematically, the film also plays too simplistically into stereotypical evil-white-empire/virtuous-native cliches, especially since the invaders are presumably on an environmental rescue mission on behalf of the entire world, not just the U.S. Script is rooted very much in a contemporary eco-green mindset, which makes its positions and the sympathies it encourages entirely predictable and unchallenging.
On an experiential level, however, "Avatar" is all-enveloping and transporting, with Cameron & Co.'s years of R&D paying off with a film that, as his work has done before, raises the technical bar and throws down a challenge for the many other filmmakers toiling in the sci-fi/fantasy realm. The lead team from Weta in New Zealand as well as the numerous other visual-effects and animation firms involved have done marvelous and exacting work, a compliment that extends to every other craft and technical contribution on view.
Playing a grunt in a crewcut before his transformation, Worthington is tough, gruff and assertive as the genetic pioneer turned insurrectionist, while Saldana proves her mettle as yet another kickass Cameron heroine. Lang, already seen to great advantage this year in "Public Enemies," is a relentless militarist par excellence, while Weaver, looking great wearing a Stanford T-shirt, no doubt a personal touch by the alum, is wonderfully authoritative as a scientist so unimpeachable that she can get away with smoking on board an intergalactic spaceship."
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117941773.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
Many, many thanks go out to these people who graced us with such in-depth critiques.
Official Avatar Movie